I am not convinced yet nothing will change. Google paid a whopping 1.3 billion dollar. They need to generate money somehow. Also Waze should not forget that without the community the program wouldn't be as big as it is now.

Use Googles servers and resources for what they're worth. Live map tile refreshes maybe? Overkill perhaps.

Just do me a favour and don't change the name to a mashup like

Waloozle or even worse...

Gaze (lol)

Nice choice of Google over Crapbook though. They would've destroyed this community by poking it to death. Google has previous and plenty of money and resources to throw at this. Use that to your advantage.